"Imagine you're a tourist and you arrive at this place and you want to know more about it,” said (Google Product Manager Hartmut) Neven on a visit to the Santa Monica pier in Los Angeles the show off the technology. “All you will have to do is take a picture of the sign. We send the information up to the serverand we recognize this as the Santa Monica pier. The idea is you see something that interests you, you whip out your camera phone, take a picture of the object of interest, and this will trigger a Google search."

The CNBC special, which had exclusive access to the Visual Search team, showed that the technology was not quite ready for prime time - at least back in August when footage was filmed. In his report eWeek's Clint Boulton notes that Neven has a patent for mobile advertising around augmented reality.